


At Least I Believe It To Be

by notsodarling



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Coda, Dealing with Government Conspiracies, Gen, Jesse Manes Needs to Die A Slow Painful Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 16:06:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18577873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsodarling/pseuds/notsodarling
Summary: Alex and Kyle discuss just how involved Jim Valenti may have really been in Project Shepard.





	At Least I Believe It To Be

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write two codas - one of Kyle & Alex, and one of Alex & Michael - dealing with the fallout of episode 12. It was actually incredibly easy to write this one - the Alex & Michael one is currently sitting in my WIP folder, breaking my heart. The promos for tonight's finale didn't help either.
> 
> And I'm sure this entire thing will get Joss'd anyway!
> 
> Enjoy! <3

Alex knows how to be patient.

It’s been several days since Caulfield, and even Alex feels like he’s chosen to isolate himself from everyone - alternating between time at the Project Shepard Bunker, working on decrypting the hard drives Kyle had managed to salvage, and just staying at home in the cabin, Wentz his only companion. There’s been so much to upack, to deal with and Alex knows that right now, the one person he wishes he could be with is asking for space. Michael had given it to him, all those months ago when he hadn't been quite sure how to ask for it; Alex knows, _understands_ , the importance in returning the favor.

Instead, he’s spent some time with Kyle, helping him deal with the fallout of learning about Prisoner N-38, and the startling reality that an alien was capable of instantly giving Jim Valenti the brain tumor that led to his death. For everything he knew about Kyle’s father, his role in Project Shepard and Caulfield were the hardest to reconcile. He’s avoided town as much as possible, not even daring to step foot in the Wild Pony for fear that he’ll want to spill every hurt and ugly truth out in front of Maria.

The door to the bunker opens, and Alex glances around to see Kyle joining him - surprising, but not unwelcome. He doesn’t ask Kyle how he’s doing - he knows the answer already. So with a nod hello, Alex turns back to the wall of monitors and focuses again on his work. There’s probably a reason Kyle has shown up, but Alex can wait until he broaches the subject.

It doesn’t take long.

“Before my dad died, when he would say ‘if you see the handprint, go to Manes’ I never understood what he was talking about. Mom thought it was nonsensical rambling brought on by the cancer,” Kyle starts, and Alex can hear the scraping of the wheels on the concrete floor, the sloshing of liquid being poured into a glass. “You weren’t around when he died, so when I saw the handprint on Liz, I panicked.”

Alex feels like they’ve all been tiptoeing around this issue for months - never really discussing what made Kyle seek out his father in the first place. He pushes back from the computers, and turns to face Kyle.

“He helped Rosa get clean. He left you the cabin. I wanted to believe he was a good person,” Kyle forces the words out, as if they pained him to verbalize in light of everything he’d learned at Caulfield.

“Your father was a good person,” Alex says, because he can’t listen to Kyle continue down this path of destroying the image he has of his father. He'd watched it almost happen in the cabin, that day they'd discovered the bunker. The day they'd discovered Rosa was Kyle's half-sister.

“Liz said the same thing.” Kyle takes a deep breath before continuing. “I finally told her - about Rosa. We were at the cemetery and-”

“Kyle,” Alex interrupts, shaking his head, because he doesn't need to know. Kyle doesn't owe him any explanations, and he's already more than familiar with the complexities of the relationship Rosa and Liz had growing up.

“It doesn’t change anything,” Kyle replies still. “But it felt good to finally tell her.”

Alex thinks of the mess all their lives became after that weekend, in the wake of Rosa's death, and knows no matter how much it hurts, how much it has hurt these past few months to reopen those wounds, ridding themselves of the secrets, discovering the truth has only helped them all become better people. He thinks of a conversation with Liz, something he now knows because she'd finally learned the real cause of Rosa's death, and realizes Kyle is headed down a similar path.

“It doesn’t mean your father hasn’t made mistakes, but I don’t believe he was as involved with Caulfield as you think.”

“Then how-"

Alex shakes his head again. “The things Flint told me, the information I’m finding on these drives - if you’re going to hate anyone, direct it where it belongs. At my father.”

Because that’s the cold hard truth Alex keeps coming across. That his family’s _legacy_ of military involvement, his father’s blackmail tactics to get his way, is the problem. That over the past several days, when he’s managed to to sit down and start piecing everything together, Alex realizes he doesn’t believe Jim Valenti _willingly_ participated in the government’s and his family’s pet project against the aliens that crashed in 1947. The coded letters, a way to communicate to Kyle where to look and who to go to for help, also help Alex back up that belief.

They’ve all been a little slow on the uptake, getting around to discovering the weird, and sometimes unimaginable, truths about their hometown. But now, as everything starts coming out into the open, Alex knows it’s for the best, especially with Michael’s words from the bunker ringing loud and clear in his head, _I’ve been tired of secrets for a long time_.

“How do you do it?”

Alex frowns at that. “Do what?”

“This,” Kyle says, gesturing vaguely, but Alex picks up on his meaning. “How are you not angrier for everything?”

Alex hates talking about growing up, about the abuse, about the military. There have been so many times in his life, where he’s wished time travel was possible. To go back to when his mom was around, and his father wasn’t answering with fists and leaving bruises on his skin.

“I’m angry,” Alex replies, because he is. He always has been. It’s a feeling deep under his skin that exists, but that Alex tries to not answer to. And for most of his life, he’s succeeded. “Or have you forgotten I’ve punched you in the face before?”

That gets a small laugh out of Kyle, and it’s good. Alex knows he needs to step out of his head, and this ensuing panic over his father.

“Speaking of angry - have you talked to Guerin?”

Alex takes a deep breath at Kyle’s question. It’s not the change in conversation he wants, but if it helps Kyle, he can do that. He hasn’t told him anything about what happened in the holding area, about Michael finding his mother only to lose her, and the emotional toll it took. He does know Michael’s silence on the drive back from the prison was odd, but none of them had been in much of a speaking mood afterward, the deafening silence a fourth companion in the humvee that evening.

“No.”

Kyle nods, as if understanding, and Alex waits.

“He knew, you know. That they were aliens - the moment we stepped into that holding area.” There’s a look on Kyle’s face as he speaks, and recalls. “There was one cell, he was stuck on it, like he knew her.”

Alex nods, feeling as though his heart is breaking - shattering - in his chest all over again. The desperation he’d seen in Michael’s face, heard in his voice, had solidified Alex’s resolve to _stay_ , even when every fiber of his being was telling him to _run_. Even when Michael had given him every reason to leave. He knows staying had been the right choice, would always be the right choice, even as he battled his PTSD and anxiety and the overwhelming fear that had surged through him at the thought of being in that building when it collapsed.

If there had been one thing Alex knew, it was that Michael had never felt _wanted_ . Had never had a _home_ , a _family_. Alex had learned, during the time they’d finally taken to talk, to learn about each other, that Michael had spent so much of his life, of his time here on this planet, searching, wishing, hoping, waiting. That someone was looking for him.

That day in the shed when they were seventeen, when Michael had looked at him with such open eyes, laying his truths out bare, Alex knows that’s the day Michael became _his_ home. He hadn’t quite understood the feeling at the time, had been terrified for years afterward of putting a name to it. It wasn’t surprising how easily Maria had read him that night at the bar several months ago, taking one look at him and offering up the sage advice only she was capable of giving, _home can be a person_ , putting words to a feeling that Alex had been carrying around for a decade.

“My family is responsible for what happened to his.” The words pour out of Alex’s mouth, because this is the truth he now has to live with. How, as Caulfield fell to rubble, Alex had tried, had tentatively reached out to touch Michael, to make sure he knew he was there, only to see him flinch - a reaction he’d never been on the receiving end of from Michael in all their time together. It had hurt, but Alex had understood it.

Maybe he even deserved it.

“His? You mean-?"

Alex nods, and watches as there’s a shift in Kyle, as if he’s understanding just what may have happened during that time, though Alex isn’t going to give him details. That moment, the only memory Michael has of his mother now, is not meant for anyone else, and Alex is going to respect that. He owes Michael that much.

“It’s not your fault,” Kyle says, as if Alex doesn’t already know. As if it’s not something he’s been working through for days, weeks, and years. “You are not your father.”

“And yet Michael keeps getting hurt because of me.” It feels good to say the words, because he’s been holding them in for so long, has never talked about this _guilt_ he’s carried around since he was seventeen. Hadn’t wanted to burden Maria or Liz at the time when they were both dealing with Rosa’s death, and then Liz had left town, and Alex had enlisted with his father’s threat hanging over his head - it just became easier to _not_ deal with.

Learning about what happened in Texas between Michael and Maria had hurt, even Alex couldn’t deny that it had made him wonder if he was in fact _too late_ . If he’d pushed Michael away too many times, and this was Michael finally saying _enough_ . But he’d had Kyle’s words fresh in his mind that morning when he’d shown up at the junkyard, and that had been what they’d needed to do - to talk, to learn about one another in a way they’d never been allowed, never been given the chance. Alex had pushed past that hurt, past that overwhelming need to _keep walking_ , because he knew, more than anything, that he couldn’t lose Michael. That he needed to know if there was more to them than this overwhelming, all-consuming, _connection_ between them.

Silence falls between them, and Alex focuses on a spot on the far wall, a USGS map of Roswell, locations marked off as relevant to the UFO crash. It's a map Alex has spent hours pouring over in the months since overthrowing his father, trying to make sense of everything. He takes the opportunity to shift the conversation off Michael, and back to the bigger issue they have to deal with.

“My father blackmails people into doing his bidding, into conforming, and following orders - Jenna, Flint, me-” Alex pauses, trying to not think too hard about how his father had dangled Michael over him, essentially forcing Alex’s acquiescence at seventeen to enlist in the Air Force. Into a war he never wanted to be a part of, into a career he never intended to have.

“You think your father used Rosa? To blackmail mine?”

“I’m not ruling it out as a possibility,” Alex says, nodding. “Especially since officially the project was shut down in 2010. But Flint said my dad brought him on around 2013.”

“You think my dad _made_ that alien give him the brain tumor?”

Alex isn’t sure what he believes right now. But he’s not ruling out several possibilities, each more crazy than the last. It’s entirely possible his father was blackmailing Jim Valenti into participating in Project Shepard - Flint hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with information on that front. And when Kyle had inquired further, there’d been no direct reply from Flint, no confirmation, no denial. Why would Jim Valenti have wanted Alex to find the piece of alien ship glass then? Why had he needed them to discover Caulfield?

“Your father would never have sent me to _help_ with Project Shepard - not when he knew it was being run by my father.” Alex thinks of being left the cabin, knowing he’d need somewhere to go when he got back from the Middle East. “But between your letters, and the glass I found in the cabin, there’s no mistake that he wanted us to know what was going on.”

“But now without the prison-”

“I wish I could say destroying the prison was the end of it,” Alex admitted, thinking about _smart bombs_ , and how Flint had sounded when he'd talked about an _impending alien invasion_ \- words straight out of their father's mouth. “But the work Flint had talked about, the research, I think we're looking at a much bigger problem.”

“How much of a _much bigger problem_ we talking here?”

Alex takes a deep breath.

“My father doesn’t view the aliens as anything except hostile - and that line of thinking apparently has extended down to Flint as well, and whoever else is involved in this. They’re designing weaponry targeted specifically to their DNA.” Every time Alex thinks of something happening to Michael now, of realizing what part his father, his brother, have in this plan, he feels sick. Michael has already lost his mother, what else can Alex’s family take from him?

“That sounds an awful lot like genocide.” Kyle’s voice is somehow level, cool, clinical, and Alex is grateful for it. At least the two of them remain on the same page, even with everything they’d learned, witnessed at Caulfield. “But he did say something along those lines to me.”

Alex is starting to wonder just how deep this particular rabbit hole is going to go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
